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? LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 1

i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. |

AN APPEAL

PROFESSORS OF CHRISTIANITY,

IN THE SOUTHERN STATES AND ELSEWHERE,

ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY

THE REPRESENTATIVES OF

THE YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS
FOR NEW ENGLAND.

\

PROVIDENCE :
PRINTED BY KNOWLES AND VOSE

1842

AN APPEAL.

It is the duty of those who are the professed followers
of our Divine Master, to be concerned for the welfare of
their fellow-professors, and for their steady advancement
in the path prescribed by our Lord for all his servants
to walk in ; and it is their privilege to extend to them
a word of caution or entreaty in a spirit of love and
good will, which desires the peace and prosperity of the
whole heritage of God. " Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will toward men," was the an-
them sung by angels at the advent of the Messiah ; and
as we become partakers of his spirit, we, too, may be
enabled to join in this angelic song.

It is, we trust, in Christian, brotherly love, and for the
promotion of the cause of truth and righteousness, and
certainly not for the advancement of any temporal interest
of our own, that we are induced, at this time, to present
to our fellow-professors, of every denomination, this brief
address on the subject of Slavery ; and the freedom that
we feel ourselves required to use in relation to it, will
not, we hope, be deemed obtrusive, when we remember
the intrinsic importance of the matter treated of, and
call to mind the one faith and ground of hope of all
true professors of Christianity. We are believers in one
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for the sins of
the whole world. We believe in him as a risen Mediator,
who ever liveth to make intercession for us. We believe
in the promised Comforter, — the Spirit of Truth, — to

4

guide into all truth. We believe in a final day, when we
must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to
receive a reward for the deeds done in the body; and
that it is not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, that shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven, but they who do
the will of our Father, who is in heaven. It is they who
have clothed the naked, fed the hungry, visited the sick,
and showed mercy, that shall obtain mercy. These fun-
damental doctrines are, we trust, faithfully received by all
those who have a hope of salvation in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and they do acknowledge his holy precepts and
commandments given forth for the observance of men as
possessing obligatory and paramount authority to the
present day. Among these binding injunctions is that
universal rule which commends itself to the conscience
of every man for its justice and wisdom — " Whatsoever
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them" — a rule most comprehensive in its application, and
eminently practical in its results. It extends to all whom
God has created ; and "He made of one blood all the
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth/'
By creation the whole human family are brethren ; they
are all " concluded in unbelief; " they all stand in need of
redemption; and Christ, in infinite love, died for all. All
whom God made are the objects of his mercy ; all are em-
braced in the means of salvation which he has appointed ;
and all, without distinction of caste or color, must stand
before him at the day of judgment ; and it is that you
and we may appear with joy at his tribunal, and receive
a gracious welcome into the mansions prepared for the
righteous, that we are induced now to plead with you
in love, and to entreat you to give a patient attention
to what is presented for your solemn consideration.

It may be known to you that, at one time, there were
of our fellow-members of the society of Friends those
that held slaves, as some of you do at this day ; and

while we would speak it with humility, we may, per-
haps, be permitted to say, that we doubt not it was
through the enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit
upon their hearts, that they were enabled to see that this
practice did not accord with that love which has been
so mercifully extended to the children of men through
their adorable Savior, and was inconsistent with his uni-
versal rule, which we have cited.

It is not our desire to revive any considerations which
are calculated unprofitably to awaken your feelings, but we
believe it to be the duty of us all candidly to contemplate
the misery and suffering that are inseparably connected
with slavery from its very beginning on the continent of
Africa. It commences in exciting into action the worst
passions of the human mind, inducing an awful destruc-
tion of life, cruel separation of friends, and dreadful suf-
ferings on the part of survivors. Let us not be willing
to hide from our view the terrible effects of the foreign
slave trade, or attempt to screen ourselves from the re-
sponsibility that attaches to us under the plea that this
traffic is interdicted by our government, and that all who
are concerned in it are held as pirates by the laws of our
land. The facts in the case incontestably prove that, while
a market for slaves exists, the cupidity of degenerate and
wicked men will devise means to evade the execution of
these laws ; and we deem it pertinent to our purpose to
spread before you some well-authenticated statements,
which tend to show the extent of the traffic, and to ex-
hibit, in some degree, its wickedness and cruelty.

With the effects of slavery at home many of you are
familiar. You are witnesses of its influences in their
various bearings in all the relations of life. You are
conversant with the degradation and wretchedness which,
in a greater or less degree, always attend it. But its
more remote consequences may escape observation, and
we may even lose sight in the distance of the necessary

6

connection of cause and effect. It is a truth winch we
believe cannot be disproved, that to slavery, as a cause, is
the slave trade to be traced, as an effect, with all its
manifold misery and crime ; and we would appeal to all
those who are concerned in the one, whether its aban-
donment would not certainly produce the destruction of
the other; and can those who are the supporters of
slavery, consistently, or with hope of success, plead
against the slave trade, its legitimate offspring, its bitter
and natural fruit. Let us be willing to examine this
subject as it is, and act as our consciences, enlightened
by the truth, shall dictate.

The extent of the slave trade at the present day is
much greater than could possibly be believed by those
who have not informed themselves upon the subject. We
avail ourselves of some of the authorities collected in a work
recently published by Thomas Fowell Buxton, which we
believe entitled to entire confidence — the work itself
giving evidence of having been prepared with great care
and candor, after much patient inquiry and investigation.
It appears to be well established by this author, that,
notwithstanding all that has been done to arrest this
traffic, more than one hundred and fifty thousand human
beings are annually conveyed from Africa across the At-
lantic, and sold as slaves, being landed principally at
some of the ports of Brazil and Cuba; and not less than
fifty thousand more are required for the supply of the
Mohammedan slave trade ; — making a total of more than
two hundred thousand persons who are annually torn
from the laud of their nativity and sold into perpetual
slavery.*

* R. R. Gurley, the well-known advorate of the American Colonization
Society, in a publication printed by him in England, in 1841, gives it as his
opinion, from all the facts he could collect, that " nearly or quite half a mil-
lion of wretched Africans, are annually torn from their homes, a moiety of
whom perish in capture, during their march to the coast, in the holds of slave
ships on their passage across the ocean, or during the first trials of toil and
expos-:'0 in a foreign climate."

After having very fully established that his estimate
of numbers does not exceed the truth, Buxton proceeds
to say, " Hitherto I have stated less than the half of this
dreadful case. I am now going to show that, besides the
two hundred thousand annually carried into captivity.
there are claims on our compassion for almost countless
cruelties and murders growing out of the slave trade. I
am about to prove that this multitude of our enslaved
fellow-men is but the remnant of numbers vastly greater,
the survivors of a still larger multitude over whom the
slave trade spreads its devastating hand, and that for
every ten who reach Cuba or Brazil, and become available
as slaves, fourteen, at least, are destroyed. This mortality
arises from the following causes : —

" 1st. The original seizure of the slaves.

" 2d. The march to the coast, and detention there.

" 3d. The middle passage.

" 4th. The sufferings after capture, and after landing ; and

" 5th. The initiation into slavery, or the ' seasoning,' as
it is termed by the planters." The original seizure of the
slaves causes a great part of the continent of Africa to
be "afield of warfare and desolation, a wilderness in
which the inhabitants are wolves to each other." " Oil
the authority of public documents, parliamentary evidence,
and the works of African travellers, it appears that the
principal and almost the only cause of war in the interior
of Africa, is the desire to procure slaves for traffic ; and
that every species of violence, from the invasion of an
army to that of robbery by a single individual, is had
recourse to for the attainment of this object." * * * *

" William Wilberforce, in his letter to his constituents
in 1807, has described the mode in which slaves are
usually obtained in Africa; and, after speaking of the
dreadful and exterminating wars that are often waged by
one tribe upon another, he remarks, —

"In another part of the country, we learn from the

most respectable testimony, that a practice prevails, called
village breaking. The village is attacked in the night ;
if deemed needful to increase the confusion, it is set on
fire, and the wretched inhabitants, as they are flying naked
from the flames, are seized and carried into slavery.

" These depredations are far more commonly perpetrated
by the natives on each other, and on a larger or smaller
scale, according to the power and number of the assail-
ants, and the resort of ships to the coast ; it prevails so
generally as throughout the whole extent of Africa to
render person and property utterly insecure." * * "Every
man who has acquired any considerable property, or who
lias a large family, the sale of which will produce a con-
siderable profit, excites in the chieftain near whom he
resides, the same longings which are called forth in the
wild beast by the exhibition of his proper prey ; and he
himself lives in a continual state of suspicion and terror/'
The statements of Wilberforce have been corroborated by
Bryan Edwards, himself a dealer in slaves, and an able
and persevering advocate for the continuance of the traf-
fic. In a speech delivered in the Jamaica assembly, he
says, " I am persuaded that Wilberforce has been very
rightly informed as to the manner in Yviiich slaves are
very generally procured. The intelligence I have col-
lected from my own negroes abundantly confirms his
account ; and I have not the smallest doubt that in Africa
the effects of this trade are precisely such as he represents
them to be."

" But, it may be said, admitting these statements to be
true, they refer to a state of things in Africa which does
not now exist. A considerable period of time has indeed
elapsed since these statements were made ; but it clearly
appears, that the same system has obtained, throughout
the interior of Africa, down to the present time ; nor is it
to be expected that any favorable change will take place
during the continuance of the slave traffic."

" Professor Smith, who accompanied Captain Tuckey
in the expedition to the Congo, in 1816, says, ' Everyman
I have conversed with acknowledges that, if white men
did not come for slaves, the wars, which, nine times out
of ten, result from the European slave trade, would be
proportionally less frequent.'

" Captain Lyon states that, when he was at Fezzan, in
1819, Mukni, the reigning sultan, was continually engaged
in these slave hunts, in one of which eighteen hundred
were captured, all of whom, excepting a very few, either
perished on their march before they reached Fezzan, or
were killed by their captor." * * * *

" We have obtained most valuable information as to the
interior of Africa from the laborious exertions of Denham
and Clapperton. They reached Soudan, or Nigritia, by
the land route through Fezzan and Bornou, in 1S23, and
the narration of their journey furnishes many melancholy
proofs of the miseries to which Africa is exposed through
the demands for the slave trade. Major Denham says,
{ On attacking a place, it is the custom of the country
instantly to fire it, and, as they (the villages) are all
composed of straw huts only, the whole is shortly de-
voured by the flames. The unfortunate inhabitants fly
quickly from the devouring element, and fall immediately
into the hands of their no less merciless enemies, who
surround the place ; the men are quickly massacred, and
the women and children lashed together and made slaves.'

" Denham tell us that the Begharmi nation had been
discomfited by the sheik of Bornou, in five different expe-
ditions, when at least twenty thousand poor creatures were
slaughtered, and three fourths of that number, at least,
driven into slavery. And in speaking of these wars, he
uses this remarkable expression, — ' The season of the
year had arrived, (25th November,) when the sovereigns
of these countries go out to battle.' Commodore Owen,
who was employed in the survey of the eastern coast of
2

10

Africa, about the years of 1823 and 1824, says, 'The
riches of Quilimane consisted in a trifling degree of gold
and silver, but principally of grain, which was produced
in such quantities as to supply Mozambique. But the
introduction of the slave trade stopped the pursuits of
industry, and changed those places, where peace and
agriculture had formerly reigned, into the seat of war
and bloodshed.

" Contending tribes are now continually striving to
i, by mutual conflict, prisoners as slaves for sale
to the Portuguese, who excite those wars, and fatten on
the bloocl and wretchedness they produce."

'•' In speaking of Inhambane. he says ; ' The slaves they
do obtain are the spoils of war among the petty tribes,
who, were it not for the market they thus find for their
prisoners, would, in all likelihood, remain in peace with
each other, and probably be connected by bonds of
mutual interest.' "

" Ashmun, agent of the American Colonial Society, in
writing to the Board of Directors from Liberia, in 1823.
says, ' The following incident I relate, not for its singu-
larity, for similar events take place, perhaps, every month
in the year ; but it has fallen under my own observation.
and I can vouch for its authenticity : King Boatswain, our
most powerful supporter, and steady friend among the
natives, (so he has uniformly shown himself.) received a
quantity of goods on trust from a French slaver, for
which he stipulated to pay young slaves ; he makes it
a point of honor to be punctual to his engagements.
The time was at hand when he expected the return of the
slaver, and he had not the slaves. Looking around on the
peaceable tribes about him for his victims, he singled out
the Q,ucaks, a small agricultural and trading people, of
most inoffensive character. His warriors were skilfully
distributed to the different hamlets, and. making a simul-
taneous assault on the sleeping occupants in the dead of

11

the night, accomplished, without difficulty or resistance, in
one hour, the annihilation of the whole tribe : every
adult man and woman was murdered ; every hut fired :
very young children generally shared the fate of their
parents ; the boys and girls alone were reserved to pay the
Frenchman.' "

From a letter of McBrair, a Wesleyan missionary.
recently addressed to the secretary of the Wesleyan
Missionary Society, we make the following extract : —
'■'On other occasions, a party of men-hunters associate to-
gether, and, falling suddenly on a small town or village
during the night, they massacre all the men that offer an}
resistance, and carry away the rest of the inhabitants as
the best parts of their spoil : — or, when a chieftain thinks
himself sufficiently powerful, he makes the most frivolous
excuses for waging war upon his neighbor, so that he may
spoil his country of its inhabitants. Having been in
close connection with many of the liberated Africans in
McCarthy's Island, two hundred and fifty miles up the
Gambia, and also in St. Mary's, at the mouth of that
river, we had many opportunities of learning the various
modes in which they had been captured, from which it
appeared that the wholesale method of seizure is by far
the most frequent, and that without this plan a sufficient
number of victims could not be procured for the market :
so that it may be called the prevailing way of obtaining
slaves." After many other citations from various author-
ities as to the cruelty and bloodshed incident to the seizure
of slaves, Buxton proceeds to state, — "I could add, were it
necessary, a thousand other instances of the scenes of
cruelty and bloodshed which are exhibited in Africa,
having their origin in the slave trade ; but enough has
been said to prove the assertion with which I set out, — that
the principal and almost the only cause of war, in the
interior of Africa, is the desire to procure slaves for traffic,
and that the only difference betwixt the former times and

12

the present day is this, — that the mortality consequent on
the cruelties of the system has increased in proportion to
the increase of the traffic, which, it appears, has doubled in
amount, as compared with the period antecedent to 1790."

The next cause of mortality, after the seizure, is the
cruelty exercised in the march of the slave and his deten-
tion previous to embarkation. " The slaves are commonly
secured by putting the right leg of one and the left of
another into the same pair of fetters. By supporting the
fetters with a string, they can walk, though very slowly.
Every four slaves are likewise fastened together by the
neck, with a strong pair of twisted thongs : and in the
night, an additional pair of fetters is put on their hands,
and sometimes a light iron chain passed around their
necks." "Such of them as evince marks of discontent
are secured in a different manner ; a thick billet of wood
is cut, about three feet long, and, a smooth notch being
made on one side of it, the ankle of the slave is bolted
to the smooth part by means of a strong iron staple, one
prong of which passes on each side of the ankle."

In this cruel manner are they forced to travel from the
interior of the country to the coast, subjected to every
privation and misery ; so that it is estimated, from the
most accurate computation that has been attained, that
the number of those who die on the journey alone is equal
to Jive twelfths of the whole. While detained at the coast
waiting for embarkation, from want of sufficient food,
from close confinement, and other causes, diseases of a
most fatal character often supervene, producing a frightful
mortality ; so that, in every stage of this dreadful traffic,
we find the lives of its victims are continually sacrificed.

We next advert to the middle passage, as it is termed, or
the transportation of the slaves across the Atlantic; and
the sufferings here revealed are truly of the most appalling
character, fully justifying, as we apprehend, the language
used by William Wilberforce, in 1807. " The stings of a

13

wounded conscience man cannot inflict ; but nearly all
which man can do to make his fellow-creatures miser-
able, without defeating his purpose by putting a speedy
end to their existence, will still be here effected ; and it
will still continue true, that never can so much misery
be found condensed into so small a space as in a slave
ship during the middle passage."

" The first feature of this deadly passage," says Buxton,
" which attracts our attention, is the evident insufficiency,
in point of tonnage, of the vessels employed for the cargoes
of human beings which they are made to contain."

" We have a faithful description of the miseries of the
middle passage, from the pen of an eye-witness, Falcon-
bridge. His account refers to a period antecedent to 1790.
He tells us that ' The men negroes, on being brought
aboard ship, are immediately fastened together, two and
two, by handcuffs on their wrists, and by irons riveted on
their legs.' ' They are frequently stowed so close as to
admit of no other posture than lying on their sides.
Neither will the height between decks, unless directly
under the grating, permit them the indulgence of an
erect posture, especially where there are platforms, which
is generally the case. These platforms are a kind of
shelf, about eight or nine feet in breadth, extending from
the side of the ship towards the centre. They are
placed nearly midway between the decks, at the distance
of two or three feet from each deck. Upon these the
negroes are stowed in the same manner as they are
on the deck underneath.' * * * *

" In favorable weather they are fed upon deck, but in
bad weather their food is given to them below. Number-
less quarrels take place among them during their meals ;
more especially when they are put upon short allowance,
which frequently happens. In that case, the weak are
obliged to be content with a very scanty portion. Their
allowance of water is about half a pint each at every meal.

14

Upon the negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen
coals of fire, glowing hot. put on a shovel, and placed so
near their lips as to scorch and burn them ; and this has
been accompanied with threats of forcing them to swallow
the coals, if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat."
He proceeds to notice the case of a Liverpool vessel, which
took on board, at the Bonny River, nearly seven hundred
slaves, (more than three to each ton !) and Falconbridge
says, " By purchasing so great a number, the slaves were
so crowded that they Avere even obliged to lie one upon
another. This occasioned such a mortality among them,
that, without meeting with unusual bad weather, or having
a longer voyage than common, nearly one half of them
died before the ship arrived in the West Indies." He
then describes the treatment of the sick as follows : — " The
place allotted to the sick negroes is under the half deck,
where they lie on the bare plank. By this means, those
who are emaciated frequently have their skin, and even
their flesh, entirely rubbed off, by the motion of the ship,
from the prominent parts of the shoulders, elbows, and
hips, so as to render the bones in those parts quite bare.
The excruciating pain which the poor sufferers feel from
being obliged to continue in so dreadful a situation, fre-
quently, for several weeks, in case they happen to live so
long, is not to be conceived or described. Few, indeed,
are ever able to withstand the fatal effects of it. The
surgeon, on going between decks in the morning, fre-
quently finds several of the slaves dead, and among the
men, sometimes a dead and a living negro fastened by
their irons together."

We omit many of the statements of Falconbridge, who
was a surgeon on board a slave ship, because we do not
wish to dwell unnecessarily upon this painful scene.
The cruelties enacted in the middle passage upon the
slaves have increased to an awful extent, since the trade
has become contraband by the laws of nations, from the

15

fact of a different class of vessels being now employed than
formerly, — those that have much less capacity for the
accommodation of their human cargoes, in consequence of
their construction being such as to render them the most
rapid sailers, that they may outsail or avoid the armed
vessels that are often engaged in pursuing them.

"Laird, in his journal of the recent expedition to the
Niger, says, l Instead of the large and commodious vessels
which it would be the interest of the slave trader to em-
ploy, we have, by our interference, forced him to use a
class of vessels (well known to naval men as American
clippers) of the very worst description that could have
been imagined, for the purpose, every quality being
sacrificed for speed. In the holds of these vessels the
unhappy victims of European cupidity are stowed literally
in bulk." * *' * # "As a proof of the increase in the
mortality on the middle passage, I may adduce," says
Buxton, "the evidence of Jackson, (who had been a
judge in the Mixed Commission Court at Sierra Leone,)
before the committee on Sierra Leone, in 1830. In
answer to a question, he said, ' I think the sufferings of
these poor slaves are greatly aggravated by the course
now adopted ; for the trade is now illegal, and, therefore,
whatever is done is done clandestinely : they are packed
more like bales of goods on board than human beings, and
the general calculation is, that if, in three adventures, one
succeeds, the owners are well paid.' "

Dr. Walsh, in his "Notes of Brazil," gives the follow-
ing account of a Spanish slaver detained by the vessel of
war, in which he returned from Brazil, in 1S29. He says.
" When we mounted her decks, we found her full of
slaves ; she had taken on board five hundred and sixty-
two, and had been out seventeen days, during which she
lost fifty-five. The slaves were all enclosed under grated
hatchways between decks. The space was so low that
they sat between each other's legs, and stowed so close

16

together that there was no possibility of their lying down,
or at all changing their position by night or day. As they
belonged to and were shipped on account of different in-
dividuals, they were all branded, like sheep, with the
owners marks, of different forms. These were impressed
under their breasts or on their arms; and, as the mate
informed me with perfect indifference, burnt with a red-
hot iron.

" The poor beings were all turned up together ; they
came swarming up like bees from the aperture of a hive.
till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation from stem
to stern. On looking into the places where they had been
crammed, there were found some children next to the sides
of the ship. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to
life or death, and, when they were carried on deck, many
of them could not stand ; some water was brought ; it was
then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a
fearful manner, They all rushed like maniacs towards it :
no entreaties, or threats, or blows, could restrain them ; they
shrieked, and struggled, and fought with one another for
a drop of the precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the
sight of it. There is nothing which slaves, during the
middle passage, suffer from so much as want of water. It
is sometimes usual to take out casks filled with sea-water
as ballast, and, when the slaves are received on board, to
start the casks and refill them with fresh. On one occasion.
a ship from Bahia neglected to change the contents of the
casks, and on the mid-passage, found, to their horror, that
they were filled with nothing but sea- water. All I he slaves
on board perished ! We could judge of the extent of their
sufferings from the sight we now saw. When the poor
creatures were ordered down again, several of them came
and pressed their heads against our knees, with looks of
the greatest anguish, at the prospect of returning to the
horrid place of suffering below. It was not surprising that
they had lost fifty-five in the space of seventeen days.

17

Indeed, many of the survivors were seen lying about the
decks in the last stage of emaciation, and in a state of filth
and misery not to be looked at. While expressing my
horror at what I saw, and exclaiming against the state of
this vessel, I was informed by my friends, who had passed
so long a time on the coast of Africa, and visited so many
ships, that this was one of the best they had seen. The
height sometimes between decks was only eighteen inches";
so that the unfortunate beings could not turn round, or
even on their sides, the elevation being less than the
breadth of their shoulders ; and here they are usually
chained to the decks by the neck and legs. After much
deliberation, this wretched vessel was allowed to proceed
on her voyage. It was dark when we separated ; and the
last parting sounds we heard from the unhallowed ship
were the cries and shrieks of the slaves suffering under
some bodily infliction."

We give a few more extracts on this subject from the
many details that might be cited. The Carolina, cap-
tured in 1834, off Wydah. " This vessel was only
seventy-five tons' burden, yet she had three hundred and
fifty negroes crammed on board of her, one hundred and
eighty of whom were literally so stowed as to have barely
sufficient height to hold themselves up, when in a sitting
posture. The poor creatures crowded around their de-
liverers, with their mouths open and their tongues
parched for want of water, presenting a perfect spectacle
of human misery."

" In a letter from the Cape of Good Hope, of date 20th
January, 1837, we find it stated that her Majesty's brig
Dolphin had lately captured the corvette Incomprehensible,
and that, on taking possession of her, the scene presented
on board was harrowing in the extreme. One hundred
had died of sickness, of the eight hundred embarked;
another hundred were lying nearly lifeless on her decks,
in wretchedness and misery, and all the agony of despair ;
3

18

the remaining six hundred were so cramped from the close
manner in which they were packed, (like herrings in a
barrel,) and the length of time they had been on their
voyage, and the cold they had endured in rounding the
cape, in a state of nudity, that it took the utmost exertions
of the English sailors, favored by a hot sun, to straighten
them."

In the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette of 2d of 6th
month, 1838, is the following paragraph : — "A letter from
the Snake sloop of war, dated 31st March, 1838, says,
' We have captured a very fine schooner, called the
Arogan, off Cape Antonio, having three hundred and fifty
slaves, of both sexes, under the age of twenty, and have
sent her into the Havana for adjudication. She cleared
out from Gallinas, and lost fifty on her passage by death,
owing to the crowded manner in which they were packed,
resembling goods in a draper's shop.' "

" In the parliamentary papers printed last year by the
House of Commons, the following, among other cases, are
reported : — " The brig Don Manuel de Portugal, from
Angola, embarked six hundred slaves ; of these seventy-
three died on the voyage." "Brig Adamastor, from
Q-uilimane, embarked eight hundred slaves ; of these
three hundred and four died on the voyage/' " Brig
Leao, from Quilimane, embarked eight hundred and fifty-
five slaves ; of these two hundred and eighty-three died,
or were thrown overboard alive, during the voyage. The
small-pox having appeared among the slaves, thirty of
them were immediately thrown overboard alive ; after-
wards the measles made its appearance, of which two
hundred and fifty-three died. The remaining slaves, five
hundred and seventy-two in number, were landed on the
coast of Brazil, at Mozambayo, near to Ilha Grande, but in
so miserable a state that the greater part could not walk,
but were carried on shore."

If to the mortality arising from the causes already ad-

19

verted to during the middle passage, we add the lives
destroyed by shipwreck, it will appear that not less than
twenty-five per cent, of all those embarked perish during
their voyage. Nor does the mortality cease when they
are disembarked ; but after landing, and in the ' season-
ing,' not less than twenty per cent, are destroyed ; and
it would appear by as careful computations as have
been made, that there is no exaggeration in estimating
the mortality of the slave trade as follows : —

" 1. Seizure, march, and detention, 100 per cent.

2. Middle passage, and after capture, 25 "

3. After landing and in the seasoning, 20

145
so that, for every 1000 negroes alive at the end of a year
after their deportation, and available to the planter, we
have a sacrifice of 1450."

From the African Repository, of 8th month, 15th, 1841,
we make the following extract, viz. : —

" We cannot too often, nor too solemnly, call the atten-
tion of our readers to the fact, that the slave trade, in all
its infamy, is, at the present moment, going on and flour-
ishing, and extending to a most lamentable degree. * * *
It is computed that, at this very moment, tiventy thousand
human beings, crowded in the small and narrow slave
ships, are floating on the ocean between the land from
which they have been torn, and the mart to which they
are destined. What a stream of horror ! what cries, what
groans, must fill the air along their whole course ! How
many are just breathing their last ! How many just cast
overboard ! Who can number the accumulated horrors on
which the sun must daily look ? "

Again, from the same periodical, we extract the follow-
ing : — " When a slaver is chased by a cruiser, and is in dan-
ger of being seized, she must be lightened. And as the
slaves on board are less valuable than any other part of the
cargo, the heaviest of them are thrown overboard first. If

20

more is necessary in trying to escape the pursuing cruiser,
men, women, and children, are hurried overboard without
remorse, and in numbers proportionate to the danger. In
some instances, when seizure becomes certain, every slave
on board is thrown over, in the hope that the cruiser, find-
ing no chance for head-money, will let her pass, and then
she can return to port, take on board another cargo, and
try again. The slaves are thrown over with the fetters
that were placed on them before they were brought on
board. To lessen the chance of their escape, they are
sometimes cast in, fetters and all, in large companies ; and
to insure their sinking before the cruiser can come and
pick them up, weights are sometimes added to sink them
immediately. But this is not the only mode of lightening
the vessel. Often three or four slaves are crowded into a
cask, which is thrown over with weights attached to it.
One vessel threw over twelve such casks before she was
captured. One vessel had five hundred slaves on board,
and threw them all over. These scenes occur principally
on the Western African station ; and it is said that even
the sharks know this field of bloodshed, and are often
known to follow the slave ship from the port."

Appalling as is the view that has been presented of the
foreign slave trade, it becomes us to contemplate it, and to
remember that it is not probable any means can be devised
to arrest this awful waste of human life, these multiplied
and dreadful sufferings, while, by the continuance of
slavery, a reward is offered to stimulate the avarice of
wicked men.

Nor are the miseries and heart-rending separations in-
cident to the internal traffic that is prosecuted in our own
country, to be passed lightly over in the catalogue of evils
connected with slavery.* Notwithstanding it may be the

* Many and strong are the points of resemblance between the African and
American slave trade. Witness the manner in which the slaves are secured
when driven through the country, or transported by sea, and the manifold
sufferings to which they are subjected.

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intention of many who hold slaves to prevent, in the pro-
secution of this traffic, the separation of families, the sun-
dering of the domestic ties which bind hearts together,
whether high or low, rich or poor, bond or free, yet it is
not always in their power to avert the parting of husband
and wife, parent and child, brother and sister. Their care
to prevent these cruel separations, even when thus at-
tempted to be exercised, does not and cannot always avail.
Your daily observation shows you that they are often
perpetrated ; and bringing home the universal Christian
rule, which it is our duty to keep always before us, how
could we endure to have a parent, a child, or a bosom
friend, torn from us, and plunged into uncertain but hope-
less and bitter bondage.*

It may not be necessary for us to point out the evils of
slavery as it exists in our land. We need not offer an
argument to prove what is self-evident, — its inconsistency
with the universal, golden rule, and that, in the observance
of this rule, the highest interest of man is promoted. But
even could we disregard our future happiness in connection
with this question, and limit ourselves to that which will
conduce to our present quiet and the promotion of our tem-
poral interest, we cannot doubt but that these would even-
tually be greatly promoted by the exchange of the forced
and tardy toil of the bondman for the requited, cheerful
labor of the freeman. The experiment of emancipation,
wherever it has been fairly tried, incontestably proves this.
It has ceased to be matter of doubt and speculation, but

* President Dew of William and Mary College, Virginia, in his celebrated
attempted defence of slavery, makes the following observation : — " We have
made some efforts to obtain something like an accurate account of the num-
ber of negroes every year carried out of Virginia to the south and west. We
have not been enabled to succeed completely ; but from the best information
we can obtain, we have no hesitation in saying that upwards of six
thousand are yearly exported to other states. Virginia is in fact a negro-
raising state for other states ; she produces enough for her own supply, and
six thousand for sale."

22

has already become established as history by the testimony
of many intelligent, unimpeachable witnesses.

Would we secure present quiet, unmolested peace, and
undisturbed fireside enjoyments? Let us put away the
causes that now interrupt them, by an honest endeavor to
do as we would be done by. Then shall we receive from
those befriended a practical reciprocation of this govern-
ing principle, and our hearts will be daily gladdened and
made to rejoice in the smiles of gratitude and confidence
which on every hand will meet us.

To parents we would most earnestly appeal. Are you
willing your precious children should continue to be edu-
cated under the influences of slavery ? What are the
habits they are prone to form ? what the consequences of
the examples that are daily exhibited to them ? what the
effects upon their moral and religious lives ? Oh ! let us
remember that unto God are we to give an account for the
lambs he has intrusted to our charge ; and we solemnly ask
you, and entreat you to view it in all soberness, — do you
believe that the continuance of slavery is calculated, in its
varied results, to conduce to the prosperity of your beloved
children in this present life, or to promote their hopes of
happiness in the life to come ? or, does it not rather in-
evitably tend to induce habits of indolence, indulgence, and
vice, which lessen their present usefulness, and peril their
future hopes? Parent, art thou willing to leave thy child
involved in these fearful responsibilities ? We conjure
thee, as thou lovest him, ponder this subject well.

We are fully aware that there are many who hold slaves
that deprecate slavery, but who see clearly no way of es-
caping from it. We feel tenderly for these, and would offer
them the language of encouragement to attend to plainly
manifested duty. Pray for an increase of faith. Our
heavenly Father doth not require that of us which he will
not enable us to perform. He hath all power in heaven
and in earth, and he will remove difficulties from the way

of those who are concerned, above all things else, to know
and do his will. It is a truth of the most serious moment,
and which we desire should be impressed deeply upon our
hearts, that upon the professors of Christianity devolves the
responsibility of the continuance of slavery in our land.
Let these cease to tolerate it among their own members ;
let them exert their influence against it, and it will no
longer continue to tarnish the name of our common
country.

. We again repeat, that he who calleth us to the discharge
of any duty, will make a way for us if we look in faith
unto him for help. What has been done by a portion of
the Christian community may be done by all. We would
speak very humbly of our own religious society, and of the
course pursued by them in relation to slavery ; and yet, for
your encouragement in freeing yourselves from the evil,
we think it right to advert to it. Our forefathers, and some
of those still living, in advanced life, who held slaves, were
brought to see, and feel too, that it was not for them to
keep their fellow-beings in bondage, and yet consistently
to profess to be the followers of Him, who, through the
mouth of the prophet, hath declared this to be the fast that
he hath chosen, u to loose the bands of wickedness ; to
undo the heavy burdens ; and to let the oppressed go free,
and that ye break every yoke." And when this was made
evident to them, they dared not consult with flesh and
blood, but, in confiding reliance upon God, they proceeded
to liberate all whom they had held in bondage ; and He
who, they doubted not, required this of them as their re-
ligious duty, did indeed enable them to accomplish it, and,
we reverently believe, abundantly blessed them therein ;
and unto Him may all confidingly look for a blessing upon
their honest endeavors faithfully to do his will on earth.

And now, in conclusion, we desire very impressively, in
the love of the gospel, to bring home to every bosom the
solemn query, — Are my hands clean, in the sight of God, of

24

the blood of my brother ? Let us investigate the subject
with hearts reverently turned unto the Author of all good,
and with fervent aspirations that the truth may illuminate
our understandings, and that it may now be presented to
us in that light in which it will appear at the day of final
judgment. May we continually remember the declaration
of Holy Writ, "If thou forbear to deliver them that are
drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain ; if
thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not, doth not he that
pondereth the heart consider it ? and he that keepeth thy
soul, doth not he know it ? and shall not he render to
every man according to his works ? "

May the God of all grace and consolation bless us, and
enable us clearly to perceive our duty and faithfully to
pursue it, that we may experience the verification of the
ancient promise, <: Then shall thy light break forth as the
morning, and thy health shall spring forth speedily, and thy
righteousness shall go before thee ; the glory of the Lord
shall be thy rere-ward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord
shall answer ; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am."

Signed, on behalf and by direction of a meeting of the
Representatives of the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New
England, held at Providence, Rhode Island, the 2d of the
2d month, 1842.

SAMUEL BOYD TOBEY, Clerk.